Questions over lifestyle of Putin's aide and his wife's $10m property empire

The wife of Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has
accumulated a property empire worth well over $10m (£7.7m) and is
designing a riverside palace on an exclusive Moscow estate, the Guardian
can reveal.
The project is being overseen by a Russian tycoon who has previously done business with Donald Trump, documents show.

The disclosures are likely to raise fresh questions about Peskov’s
wealth and how he and his wife, Tatiana Navka, seem able to afford a
super-affluent lifestyle.

Russian opposition leaders have repeatedly criticised Peskov’s lifestyle
since his celebrity wedding in 2015 to Navka, a champion ice dancer who
won gold for Russia in the 2006 Winter Olympics. A Russian citizen, she
lived and trained for more than a decade in the US.

Though wealthy in her own right, research led by the investigative unit
Dossier Center, together with the Guardian, suggests the couple’s assets
and spending are greater than has been reported.

In October 2014, Navka bought a state-of-the-art property in Rublyovka,
the forested area west of Moscow that is home to Putin, Russia’s
president, and many from the country’s ruling elite.

The house in the village of Tretya Okhota is built on some of the most
expensive real estate in Russia. In December 2012, it was offered for
sale at $15.6m.

But documents seen by the Guardian show Navka purchased the entire plot
in October 2014 for 300m roubles ($7.1m) – an $8.5m discount. The price
included two pieces of land costing $3.5m. Navka furnished the house in
2013-15, consulting her husband on everything from gym equipment to
choice of eco-sauna. Items ordered from a Cyprus boutique cost more than
€500,000.

The property’s seller is listed as Timur Khaldarov, a little-known
figure who ran a charitable sporting and arts foundation, according to
Russian media.

The foundation’s founder is Alisher Usmanov, one of Russia’s most
powerful and politically influential oligarchs. Usmanov was until
recently a major shareholder in Arsenal football club and in 2018 the
UK’s eighth richest man.

Khaldarov said he was independently wealthy. He works for Metalloinvest,
Usmanov’s mining company. He said he met Navka before her second
marriage to Peskov, when his daughter wanted to try figure skating. He
said he could not remember the name of the acquaintance who introduced
them.

The house was “too small” for his family, and so he sold it to Navka in a
falling market, he said. “There was no special discount. I was paid the
market value. Why consider it a gift?” he added. Usmanov, his boss, was
not aware of the deal and did not influence it, he told Moscow TV
channel Rain.

Navka said she bought the property at the market rate, at a time when
real estate prices “began to plummet”. She was unaware of the 2012
price. “I have been working for a long time. I earn money and pay taxes
on it. Everything else is my personal matter,” she said in an email.

Neither she nor her husband had a “business relationship” with any of Russia’s “major entrepreneurs”, she added.

Usmanov confirmed he “worked closely” with Khaldarov but said he had no
interest in the Tretya Okhota house or knowledge of transactions. There
were “well-known fluctuations” in the Moscow property market at the
time, he said.

According to Dossier, Peskov and Navka made plans for an even grander
mansion on an exclusive plot in the Moscow region belonging to the
tycoon and developer Aras Agalarov.

In March 2018, Agalarov personally approved the building proposal, on a
site called Rechnaya #27, documents show. The plot is situated inside a
gated housing estate for Russia’s ultra-wealthy, on the bank of a river,
and featuring a golf course and private beach.

Documents show in 2017 the couple hired a firm of American architects,
Zampolin & Associates, based in Westwood, New Jersey, to draw up a
new mini-palace known as the Yanavka Residence.

The firm’s founder, Bob Zampolin, flew to Moscow to discuss the designs
with Navka. His proposal features 2,400 metres of living space, a
separate entrance for staff, a pool, spa, hot tub, sauna, great room and
library.

The project was active in mid-2018. Its current status is unclear. Last
week, there was no sign of building work. Asked if the plan was going
ahead, Navka replied: “This does not concern you.” She said her
relationship with Zampolin was personal and “wasn’t connected with plans
to acquire property anywhere”.

Navka’s latest photoshoot for a Russian magazine took place at the Agalarov Estate hotel.

The revelations are likely to provoke fresh questions over Peskov’s
wealth and any potential benefits he and his wife have gained from his
close relationship with Putin.

Dossier is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled critic of Putin.
Its revelations will fuel questions about Navka’s finances.

Since winning Olympic gold, Navka has enjoyed lucrative TV and
advertising deals, including for a brand of yoghurt. She has had a
primetime ice dancing show on Russia’s state-run pro-Kremlin Channel
One.

She appears to have bought her Rubylovka property using a 300m-rouble
private loan – the entire purchase price. Asked about the loan, Navka
repeated: “This does not concern you.”

Before the sale in February 2014, Navka opened three Swiss bank
accounts, documents show. The accounts were with the Zurich branch of
the Banque Internationale à Luxembourg and in dollars, euros and
roubles.

She also set up an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands, a tax
haven. The company, Carina Global Assets, was named in the Panama
Papers leak.

At that time Navka denied having any offshore companies or accounts: “I
don’t know who could have done it. I would like myself to understand
what happened.”

Navka also has a portfolio of other high-end properties. They include an
elite flat in Moscow’s central Yakimanka district, worth $4m, and given
to her by the state as a reward for her sporting success. It is being
extensively revamped.

She also has a $2m flat in the Moscow suburb of Polyanka. In 2015, she
acquired a property under a lease of 49 years from the Moscow city
government.

The pavilion in a Soviet-era park known as VDNkH was to be developed
into an ice rink and sporting arena. The project was never implemented,
Navka said. She also owns a small flat in the Crimean resort of Yalta.

The couple both have children from previous relationships, and a
daughter born in August 2014. They have had family holidays in the
Maldives, Dubai, and the French ski resort of Courchevel.

Their spending has come under persistent questioning from Alexei
Navalny, the Russian opposition leader. In 2015, he accused Peskov of
“illegal enrichment” after he and Navka reportedly honeymooned on the
world’s most expensive yacht.

Peskov was spotted at his wedding ceremony in Sochi wearing a $625,000
watch. Peskov said the watch was a present from his bride. He also
received an inheritance, he said.

Navalny has urged the Kremlin to examine the apparent discrepancy
between Peskov’s official income and his ostentatious spending, so far
without success. One theory is that Navka has on occasions benefited
from her husband’s links to Russian oligarchs who are supportive of
Putin.

Khaldarov said Navka had rented his former home for a year and a half
before she bought it, paying all appropriate taxes. Khaldarov was a
deputy director of Usmanov’s Art, Science and Sport charity foundation.

Peskov has been a confidant of Putin for 20 years and is regarded as one
of the most powerful people in Russia. He was involved in discussions
over a property deal in Moscow, held with Trump’s former lawyer Michael
Cohen, who has admitted he lied about plans to build a Trump Tower in
Moscow.

Cohen told Congress the plan fizzled out in January 2016. He now says
discussions went on for another six months and included a possible trip
by Trump to Moscow.

Cohen emailed Peskov asking for help – and held a 20-minute phone call
with one of his assistants. Peskov later invited Cohen to the St
Petersburg economic forum, and offered to facilitate high-level meetings
with Putin and Medvedev.

Peskov and Agalarov appear in the dossier compiled by the former MI6
officer Christopher Steele. It alleges the Kremlin holds compromising
material on Trump, some of it allegedly collected during Trump’s 2013
visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe contest, which Agalarov hosted.
Agalarov paid Trump about $14m in fees for putting on the show. Trump
owned the rights.

The dossier says Peskov was in charge of kompromat on Trump and Hillary
Clinton, as part of Moscow’s wider effort to influence the 2016 US
presidential election in Trump’s favour. The special counsel Robert
Mueller is examining alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russia.